Gao Xiang Publishes Signed Article in "Qiushi" Journal: Improving the Social Governance System
The "Suggestions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on the Formulation of the Fifteenth Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development" (hereinafter referred to as the "Suggestions"), adopted at the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee, focuses on the overall situation of building a powerful country and national rejuvenation. Centering closely on advancing the modernization of the national security system and capacity, the "Suggestions" make important deployments for improving the social governance system. We must persist in taking Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era as our guide, unswervingly follow the path of socialist social governance with Chinese characteristics, guarantee the new development pattern with a new security pattern, and ensure that the people live and work in peace, that society is stable and orderly, and that the country enjoys long-term peace and stability.
I. Profoundly Recognize the Great Significance of Improving the Social Governance System
Since the 18th CPC National Congress, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has creatively proposed the concept of "social governance," persisted in and strengthened the Party’s total leadership over social governance, and promoted significant achievements in the modernization of social governance. This has written a new chapter in the "two miracles" of rapid economic development and long-term social stability. During the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, further improving the social governance system is a matter concerning the overall situation of Chinese-path modernization and is of great significance.
An inevitable requirement for opening up the path of socialist social governance with Chinese characteristics through the "Two Combinations" [1].
General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "In the New Era of socialism with Chinese characteristics, an important reason why the cause of the Party and the state has achieved historic achievements and undergone historic changes is that we have persisted in the 'Two Combinations'." Looking back at the historical process of socialism from its birth to the present, the classical Marxist writers did not systematically discuss how a proletarian party, after seizing power, should govern an entirely new socialist society. Previous practices in world socialism also failed to resolve this issue. This is both an arduous task of the times and a brand-new subject in the history of the development of Marxism. Chinese civilization is long-standing, broad, and profound; it has accumulated and formed profound governance wisdom such as "the people are the foundation of the state" (mín wéi bāng běn) [2], the "combined use of rites and law" (lǐ fǎ bìng yòng) [3], and "stressing good faith and cultivating harmony" (jiǎng xìn xiū mù) [4]. These have injected precious cultural genes and provided rich cultural nourishment for contemporary social governance. Since the New Era, General Secretary Xi Jinping has persisted in combining the basic tenets of Marxism with China's specific realities and with China's fine traditional culture. He has delivered a series of important expositions centering on why and how to strengthen social governance, providing profound answers to a series of major theoretical and practical questions that are global, strategic, and forward-looking in nature. Our Party’s grasp of the laws of social governance has continuously opened up new realms and achieved new leaps. To improve the social governance system, we must base ourselves on national conditions and fuse the past with the present. We must both persist in taking Marxism as the fundamental guiding ideology for promoting social development and progress, and fully tap into and inherit the social governance wisdom contained in China's fine traditional culture, continuously promoting the innovation of theory, institutions, and practice in socialist social governance with Chinese characteristics.
An urgent need to advance the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity.
Social governance is an important aspect of national governance; the modernization of social governance is a vital component of the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "Proceeding from China's reality, we must follow the laws of governance, grasp the characteristics of the times, strengthen and innovate social governance, continuously improve the socialist social governance system with Chinese characteristics, and advance the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity." Currently, a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation is accelerating breakthroughs; Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology is iterating at an accelerated pace, exerting a major and far-reaching influence on China's social structure, social relations, social behavior, and social psychology. Social governance faces new situations and tasks. To improve the social governance system, we must clearly recognize the new opportunities and challenges AI brings to social governance—promoting benefits while mitigating harms, seizing the initiative, and avoiding risks. We must strengthen the combination of AI and social governance, promoting the deep application of cutting-edge technologies such as big data, cloud computing, and blockchain in social governance. We must continuously elevate the scientific, precise, and intelligent levels of social governance to ensure that national governance and social development better adapt to each other.
In recent years, many regions have focused on empowering social governance with AI to continuously improve governance effectiveness. The picture shows staff performing routine urban operation guarantee work at the Haidian City Brain Intelligent Operation Command Center in Beijing on December 10, 2025. Photo by Gao Zheng, Media Center of Haidian District, Beijing.
An important guarantee for promoting the benign interaction between high-efficiency governance, high-quality development, and high-level security.
At present, China's development environment faces profound and complex changes; strategic opportunities and risks/challenges coexist, and uncertain and unpredictable factors are increasing. Whether we can continuously improve the social governance system and effectively navigate complex situations has become a major factor influencing the advancement of Chinese-path modernization. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "Looking at the governance practices of various countries, if social governance fails to keep pace with economic development and various social contradictions and problems are not effectively resolved, not only will economic development be unsustainable, but the entire society may fall into turmoil." Under the intricate international and domestic situations, the "contact points" for risks in China's economic and social development are numerous, the "ignition points" are low, and transmission is fast. The cross-border, interconnected, and penetrating nature of various risks has significantly increased, posing severe new challenges to social governance. To improve the social governance system, we must coordinate development and security, securing development through security and promoting security within development. We must prevent and resolve risks to the maximum extent, enhance economic and social resilience, and guarantee the new development pattern with a new security pattern.
An intrinsic need to practice the Party’s mass line in the New Era and consolidate the Party’s governing foundation.
The masses are the creators of history, the promoters of social progress, and the most solid foundation and deepest strength for advancing Chinese-path modernization. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "The country is its people, and the people are the country." As socialism with Chinese characteristics enters the New Era, the principal contradiction in Chinese society has changed. The broad masses not only expect a better material and cultural life but also have increasing demands in areas such as democracy, the rule of law, fairness, justice, security, and the environment. The interest demands of different social groups have become more diverse. To improve the social governance system, we must further grasp the characteristics and laws of mass work under the new situation, innovate mechanisms for unifying, organizing, and mobilizing the masses, and broaden channels for seeking benefits for the people, performing tasks for the people, and resolving worries for the people. We must turn the beautiful blueprint of social governance modernization into tangible benefits that the masses can see, touch, and enjoy, continuously consolidating the class and mass foundations of the Party's long-term governance.
II. Accurately Grasp the Basic Requirements for Improving the Social Governance System
To improve the social governance system, we must clarify basic requirements, strengthen organizational leadership, and advance in a rigorous and scientific manner.
Persist in and strengthen the Party's total leadership.
This is the fundamental guarantee for improving the social governance system in the New Era and on the new journey. Social governance involves all aspects; its content is multifarious and complex, and its tasks are arduous and heavy. A single move can affect the whole situation. We must give full play to the Party's role in overseeing the overall situation and coordinating all parties to ensure that social governance always maintains the correct political direction. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that we must persist in the Party’s leadership over all work and be adept at transforming the Party’s leadership and the advantages of China’s socialist system into social governance advantages. We must unremittingly use Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era to condense the soul and forge the spirit, promoting the Party's innovative theories into classrooms, rural areas, communities, enterprises, new economic organizations, new social organizations, and new employment groups. We must integrate the Party's leadership into the entire process and all aspects of social governance, coordinately promoting the coverage of Party organizations and Party work—achieving not only "physical coverage" (yǒuxíng fùgài) but more importantly "effective coverage" (yǒuxiào fùgài). We must continuously enhance the Party's political leadership, ideological guidance, mass organization, and social appeal.
Persist in a people-centered approach.
This is the fundamental value position for improving the social governance system in the New Era and on the new journey. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "Innovating social governance must take the fundamental interests of the broadest masses as the fundamental coordinate." We must stand firmly on the side of the people, taking service to the masses and bringing happiness to the masses as the starting point and goal of all social governance activities, uniting and leading the masses to move steadily toward common prosperity. We must grasp the people's aspirations, smooth and standardize channels for the expression of mass demands, interest coordination, and protection of rights, and focus on solving the urgent, difficult, and anxious problems (jí nán chóu pàn) [5] of the people. We must respect the creativity of the people, proceed from reality to fully respect and effectively protect the pioneering spirit of the masses, and promote innovation in grassroots social governance. We must concentrate the wisdom of the people, guide various social forces to participate in social governance, and summarize and promote the good experiences and practices formed in social governance practice.
Persist in systemic governance, lawful governance, comprehensive governance, and governance at the source.
This is the methodology and path for improving the social governance system in the New Era and on the new journey. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "Social governance is a science; if managed too rigidly, it becomes a pool of stagnant water; if managed too loosely, it becomes turbulent waves." We must "persist in systemic governance, lawful governance, comprehensive governance, and governance at the source" and "be adept at using advanced concepts, scientific attitudes, professional methods, and precise standards to improve the effectiveness of social governance." Persisting in systemic governance means accurately grasping the relationships between the whole and the part, the long-term and the short-term, the macro and the micro, and the general and the particular within social governance. We must persist in a systems perspective and apply systems thinking to move social governance into a new stage of strengthened systemic integration, coordination, and high efficiency. Persisting in lawful governance means planning and advancing social governance within the overall framework of comprehensively governing the country according to law, being adept at using rule-of-law thinking and methods, and continuously enhancing the ability to effectively govern society based on institutions. Persisting in comprehensive governance means coordinating the use of various governance resources to balance social interests, regulate social relations, standardize social behavior, and resolve social problems, achieving the unification of self-discipline and external discipline, rigidity and flexibility, "governing the body" and "governing the heart," and human labor and technology. Persisting in governance at the source means treating both symptoms and root causes, with emphasis on the root causes. We must start by improving policies, perfecting systems, implementing responsibilities, and innovating mechanisms to enhance the ability to early-warn, forecast, and prevent various social risks, continuously improving the foresight, precision, and efficiency of social governance.
Persist in grasping the grassroots, strengthening the foundation, and consolidating the roots.
This is the central task for improving the social governance system in the New Era and on the new journey. Grassroots governance is the foundation of national governance. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized, "We must do a good job in the foundational work of modernizing grassroots governance." The most solid support for the Party's work is at the grassroots; the most prominent contradictions and problems in economic and social development and people's livelihoods are at the grassroots. We must regard grasping the grassroots and building the foundation as a long-term strategy and a fundamental policy that cannot be relaxed in the slightest. We must improve the ability of grassroots Party organizations to lead grassroots governance, building them into strong fighting fortresses for propagating the Party’s propositions, implementing the Party’s decisions, leading grassroots governance, uniting and mobilizing the masses, and promoting reform and development. We must push resources, services, and management down to the grassroots to ensure that all social governance work reaches "vertically to the bottom and horizontally to the edge." We must promote the extension of comprehensively and strictly governing the Party to the grassroots, deeply advancing the "simultaneous investigation and treatment of the Winds and corruption" (fēng fǔ tóng chá tóng zhì) [6], creating a favorable environment for the people to live and work in peace. We must continue to deepen the rectification of formalism to reduce the burden on the grassroots, supporting grassroots cadres to work boldly and establish prestige, and supporting the masses to rely on their own strength to solve problems in social governance.
III. Fully Implement the Key Tasks of Improving the Social Governance System
The "Suggestions" clearly require improving the social governance system and advancing the modernization of social governance. According to the various key tasks deployed in the "Suggestions," we must ensure their promotion and implementation.
Improve the social governance system based on collaboration, participation, and common interests.
The smooth operation of the systemic project of social governance requires the wide absorption of various subjects, continuously stimulating social vitality through coordination mechanisms of mutual cooperation and a rational division of labor. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "We must improve the social governance system based on collaboration, participation, and common interests; achieve benign interaction between government governance, social regulation, and resident self-governance; and build a social governance community where everyone is responsible, everyone does their duty, and everyone enjoys the benefits." We must improve the systems and mechanisms for social work, perfect the system of social governance policies, laws, and regulations, clarify power lists and responsibility boundaries, and refine the rights and responsibilities of different subjects such as the government, social organizations, enterprises, and citizens in social governance. We must integrate whole-process people's democracy into social governance, properly handle the relationships between efficient markets and capable government, efficiency and fairness, and vitality and order. We must mobilize all positive factors to the greatest extent, promote social identification, encourage common struggle, create a better life, and continuously realize the people’s yearning for a better life.
Strengthen Party building in emerging fields.
Emerging fields primarily include new economic organizations, new social organizations, and new employment groups [7]. These fields constitute a significant component of our country’s economy and society, and represent a vast space and important frontier for Party building work in the New Era. Currently, while emerging fields are developing rapidly, they also face many potential risks. In particular, the scale of new employment groups continues to expand and their interest demands are becoming increasingly diverse, posing new challenges to social governance. General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized the need to "continuously enhance the Party’s appeal, cohesion, and influence in emerging fields." We must make strengthening Party building in emerging fields a top priority, focusing on guiding new economic organizations, new social organizations, and new employment groups to unswervingly listen to and follow the Party, and to participate in social governance in an active and orderly manner. We must improve the quality of Party building in new economic organizations; for non-publicly owned enterprises, the focus is on consolidation and enhancement, while for mixed-ownership enterprises, the focus is on advancing work through categorized implementation. We must deeply advance Party building in new social organizations, streamlining work mechanisms, strengthening categorized guidance, reinforcing the role they play, and deepening Party building work and the reform and development of industry associations and chambers of commerce. We must strengthen Party building and service management for new employment groups, adhering to the requirement that "managing an industry entails managing its Party building." We must strengthen ideological and political guidance, enhance care and services, implement the responsibilities of platform enterprises and local jurisdictional responsibilities, and build harmonious labor relations.
In recent years, various localities have focused on going deep into the grassroots to listen to the voices and opinions of the people and understand their views on economic development, social governance, and the protection of people's livelihoods. The photo shows deputies to the People's Congress listening face-to-face to the opinions and suggestions of voters in Xinjinjiang Community, Heping Road Sub-district, Runzhou District, Zhenjiang City, Jiangsu Province, on November 14, 2025. Photo by Shi Yucheng / People's Visual.
Coordinating the Promotion of Grassroots Social Governance System Construction.
General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "Only by building strong grassroots Party organizations and consolidating grassroots political power can the foundation of socialism with Chinese characteristics be made firm." We must persist in Party building as the guide, enhancing the political and organizational functions of grassroots Party organizations. We must promote the construction of a vigorous and efficient grassroots social governance system characterized by the unified leadership of the Party organization, the performance of duties by the government in accordance with the law, active coordination by various organizations, and broad participation by the masses, combining autonomy, the rule of law, and the rule of virtue. We must strengthen rural governance, improve community governance, fully implement the list of responsibilities for townships and sub-districts, and improve the entry system for work matters in villages and communities to effectively resolve the problem of "a small horse pulling a large cart" [8] in grassroots governance. We must persist in and develop the "Fengqiao experience" [9] in the New Era, ensuring that contradictions are resolved at the grassroots level and neutralized in their embryonic state. We must leverage the role of grassroots norms such as civic conventions and village regulations in social governance, strengthen the cultivation of family values, education, and traditions, promote the transformation of outmoded customs [10], and effectively govern bad habits in weddings and funerals to form a positive and virtuous social fashion. We must strengthen the allocation of grassroots service and management forces, improve service facilities and funding guarantee mechanisms, and transform the "nerve endings" of the grassroots into the "outposts" of governance.
Improving Work Mechanisms for Cohesion and Serving the Masses.
In the final analysis, social governance is about working with people. We must insist that social governance is for the people and relies on the people, implementing the mass line throughout the entire process of social governance to ensure that "whatever the people call for, I respond to." We must fully implement the system of "going down to the grassroots in four capacities" [11], improve mechanisms for absorbing public opinion and gathering the wisdom of the people, and conduct in-depth reception and visitation of the masses by leading officials to better respond to public concerns. We must strengthen ideological and political guidance, improve the service and management of various social groups, and enhance systems for coordinating interest relations and protecting legitimate rights and interests. We must improve the social psychological service system and crisis intervention mechanisms to maximize the dissipation of social hostility and cultivate a social mentality of self-respect, self-confidence, rationality, composure, and upward mobility. We must strengthen the collection of people's suggestions in the New Era, coordinating the use of online and offline collection platforms, and improving the functions of public service platforms such as citizen hotlines and leadership message boards. At present, we must attach particular importance to following the online mass line and effectively enhancing our ability to carry out mass work online. We must prevent simply equating online public sentiment with public opinion and being held hostage by online discourse; yet we must also prevent ignoring the public demands reflected in sentiment, and avoid one-dimensionally substituting "deleting and blocking" for public opinion guidance and mass work, which pushes the masses to the opposing side and may even transform online sentiment into offline conflict. We must vigorously carry out the spirit of volunteering, improve the volunteer service system and work structure, strengthen the management of volunteer service organizations, carry out international exchange and cooperation, and deepen the standardization, branding, project-based, and professional construction of volunteer services to develop and expand the volunteer force. We must deepen the reform of the petitioning system [12], promote the legalization of petitioning work, and continue to deepen the governance of petitioning issues at their source and the resolution of accumulated cases. We must leverage the professional advantages of social work and focus on building a cadre of social workers who are politically firm, high in quality, concerned for the masses, serve society, and possess a rigorous style of work.
Source: Qiushi 2025/24 Web Editor: Huihui